Portion of Capitalism: Dead Peasants Life Insurance

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Portion of Capitalism: Dead Peasants Life Insurance
Michael Moore’s film of Capitalism: A Love Story is an examination on how much of a financial impact that corporation has on the lives of Americans. Capitalism seems to emulate a love affair gone wrong, with lies, abuse and betrayal towards the American people. Moore moves the film from Middle America, to the halls of power in Washington, to the global financial epicenter in Manhattan in order to answer the question of what price do Americans pay for the affection of capitalism. There is irony in the title of this film because there is certainly nothing to love about capitalism when families have to pay the price with losing their jobs, their homes and their savings as a result of the risky investments that the rich and powerful have at their disposal. With more than 14,000 jobs being lost, residents being evicted from their homes and banks stealing away families’ savings, one must wonder if there is an upside to capitalism at all. True democracy is the biggest threat to corporate America because of the one person one vote system. In order for this to take place, the growing number of people would have to come together and expose capitalism for what it truly is, a corrupt and greedy system for the wealthy.
The portion of the film that I am going to highlight is the fortune 100 companies taking life insurance out on their low and middle working class employees, also dubbed as the “dead peasants”. During the film, Moore had visited some families of the deceased who worked for companies like Amegy Bank and Walmart. In this portion of the film a woman named “Irma Johnson, explained how her late husband had been insured for $1.5 million by his employers prior to his death” (ABC News)....

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...only one underlying purpose and that is to increase profits for the company and shareholders. Corporations have taken the position that there is a profitable benefit in having life insurance policies in the name of their employees. Corporations are just maximizing their position by looking at all legal resources that the corporation has at its disposal. As an employee you are receiving some sort of benefit from the corporation such as a salary, medical, dental, profit sharing, 401k plan and any other benefit that is offered. I don’t believe that corporations always do the right thing in regards to their employees but, I also believe that employees have come to believe that they are entitled to more than what is already offered to them. As an employee you do have a choice on whether or not you want to continue to work for any corporation that behaves in this manner.

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